coinoperated:

Artemis had been busy. She had gone to the mall several times, and watched three movies in theater. She'd completed all her academic assignments for the month. All that was left was to continue studying social behavior. She was, however, tired of the stares that accompanied her excursions outside. Perhaps that was why Artemis's parents had arranged for her to see Awesome Andrea, of the Fantastic Four.

Chronologically, Andrea was not too much older than Artemis but Andrea's maturity exceeded Artemis's by far. Aretmis was not sure exactly how she felt about that but if she were asked to describe it she might say "embarrassed."

nextgen_deviant:

The citizens of Memphis, TN were trying to stay cool on a hot summer's day. The temperature reached 90 degrees with about 85% humidity. It was a hot sticky day and the citizens sought relief from the heat wherever they could. Some sought it in the air conditioned buildings while other sought it in water.

Tourists to the city took in the local sights. Some wandered through Graceland and others walked along Beale Street in the heat. Some took a cruise on the Tunica Queen Riverboat. These poor unfortunate souls would be the first to discover the impending doom that was about to strike the city.

The waters of the mighty Mississippi churned and foamed formed. A few moments later a shape emerged from the muddy waters. The riverboat was tossed about and slowly the monster emerged from the water and climbed up the east bank. It slowly pulled itself up to its full 300' height and looked at the city below. It let out a mighty roar and started destroying buildings.

ngmastersofevil:

The attack on the Young Avengers had been successful. The Stark girl, the Rogers boy and the Rhodes girl were all successfully taken. Temujin would be along shortly to pick up the Starkling. Hadelinde would deal with the Rhodes girl and the Rogers boy would be executed. It had been a good day and was about to get better.

Egghead had set everything up in Times Square while Hadelinde and the others retrieved the three young Avengers.

Hadelinde and the rest arrived right after their successful attack on the Avengers. She dropped the Rogers kid in the middle of the hovering platform and turned toward the crowd in the streets below. Enforcer held the Stark girl. Stark would have a front row seat at her brother's execution. Frenzy held the Rhodes girl. Hadelinde would deal with her after this.

"Attention world," she said, her voice amplified by a small device attached to the neck of her suit. The event was also being transmitted around the world via satellite thanks to Egghead.

"Years ago Captain America killed my father. Today justice will be served as his son pays for his crime."

Hadelinde motioned for Enforcer to ready the Rogers kid. Egghead had constructed a modern guillotine. Hadelinde had always been a fan of be-headings.

ngmastersofevil:

Hadelinde was a meticulous planner. She knew what she had to accomplish and had devised a plan to reach her first goal. Then she drafted a backup plan in case things went south. There was also a backup plan for the backup plan. She couldn’t fail. She wouldn’t fail. It wasn’t even an option. Plans for the second and third stages had been drafted as well along with backup plans for them.

Beetle had been sent to do recon on the Avengers. With her suit being undetectable and invisible she was the most logical choice for recon. It seemed like things had changed a little since her last excursion against the Avengers. It seemed like the younger ones had moved out of the mansion and onto an island a few miles off shore. It had been a most fortuitous change. The kids were more exposed and the adults weren’t around, leaving them a lot more vulnerable.

Hadelinde would exploit this to her advantage.

She didn’t like the fact that there were a few Avengers she didn’t know about. The files Temujin had provided her weren’t complete. It was another reason for the recon. She had to know what they were capable of.

She looked at the assembled group. Enforcer, Jurassic, Gravedigger, Gargantua, Frenzy, and Titanium Titan were all waiting for the orders to start the attack. She looked at each one of them and nodded.

"Let’s go.”

anyastark:

Anya sent out a text message and an email to the Young Avengers with instructions to take the Underground Airbase Shuttle out to the Hydrobase.

It had taken close to two weeks of long hours and hard work to get the main part of the base livable again. The place had been used for storage for years and unused equipment and dust had collected. Power was still functioning (from the nuclear power plant) which was always a good thing. They had managed to get two of the buildings cleaned out and ready for residents. Anya focused mainly on the communication and computer center while Sammy, Toni and Iason focused on the connected building that housed the hospital, living quarters and cafeteria.

The water purification plant was running fine and they would have fresh water to drink. The two hangars, motor pool, and the research and development buildings hadn't been touched yet. They could be worked on when they got to them. They did have the whole summer before people had to go to school.

There was still that pesky detail of telling her father or Uncle Steve about using the base. While she waited for the others to arrive, she sent an email to her dad and Uncle Steve about using the base and to come see the renovations they made.

ngmastersofevil:

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." - Sun Tzu

Hadelinde wasn't one to rush headfirst into things. She liked to know as much as she could about an opponent before she made her move. The Avengers were well known, but the Young Avengers were not. Sure she had files on them and she knew what abilities they had, but she didn't know how they functioned as a team. A person could toss together a team of the most powerful individuals on the planet and it didn't mean they would always win. Teamwork was important, the Avengers had proved this many times, but Hadelinde had no idea how the Young Avengers worked as a team. She had to know how they worked if she was going to defeat them.

Perhaps it was time to test the waters and see what the young hero-wannabes were capable of.

She called on the triplets, Enforcer and Frenzy for this job, using only a portion of her forces. She wasn't going to show her entire hand to the Avengers. Not yet anyway.

Once the plan was in place, she had Jeremy teleport them to right outside of the Avengers' Mansion.

rogue_star:

She's been sitting quietly on her bed for three hours now, just staring at it. She turned her comm off first thing, trying to clear her thoughts.

She'd spent ages and all the goodwill she'd gotten from SHIELD trying to find her teammates, and found they weren't on this world.
She'd endured Misha's insistence she just relax, make friends and accept she had a family here now.
She'd started to believe Anya suggesting that maybe, just maybe this was her world now, and had gone through the first stages of mourning her parents and friends.

And she'd been about to ask Anya if she'd help her make plans for her 18th birthday, only a few months away. Her 'sweet 16' was spent invading a Sentinel concentration camp. Freeing all those people was a wonderful feeling, but she also knew most of them wouldn't make it, with or without help from the X-Men and the underground railroad, and they'd almost lost Firefly.
Her 17th was spent in a new world, recently bereft of all the things she'd come to know with the Exiles, along with the fleeting hope of making things ok again. And, of course, watching Anya's birthday party not long before, and feeling horribly out of place.

She'd screwed up her courage, tried to figure out who to invite, and was finally ready to go apologize to her parents at their non-graves, the Tomb of the Uknown Soldier seemed fitting, to ask them to understand that she needed to live her own life. And she'd prepared to ask Anya to help with a real birthday party - and was still debating, with a few butterflies, asking if Anya might even be her 'pretend date' if they did it somewhere private.

And then it showed up, just appearing out of nowhere on her right arm.

She's been in her room since, alternating between crying and trying to find a new reserve of willpower, like she always did. She was a Rogers, after all. This time, it just wasn't there. Only the words it kept telling her.

'Galactus' ship's temporal shields screwed things up, but we're back on track.
You still have work to do, kiddo.
Kiss dreams of a normal life goodbye and let's get back to work.'

Worst of all, she knew exactly what she had to do.